I suppose it is understandable for men who carry a particular haplogroup to want to believe that their direct ancestor had primacy in everything, but I'm getting a bit tired of R1a1a carriers fighting for the idea that 13910T lactase persistence arose in an R1a1a man, and R1b carriers fighting for the idea that PIE was first spoken by an R1b man. It doesn't matter . . .

It isn't in the same league with having enough air to breathe or food and drink and shelter, but it does matter. Otherwise, there would be far fewer sales of y-dna tests and far far fewer posts here at World Families and elsewhere.

Maybe R1a was the original PIE y haplogroup. I don't know. I tend to think there wasn't much R1b, if any, in Cucuteni-Tripolye and that what was there will turn out to have been I2a, G2a, and E1b1b. So, if IE was transmitted rather than carried west, then perhaps R1b men learned it from I2a, G2a, and E1b1b middlemen, and not so much from the R1a originators themselves. Maybe R1b hasn't yet been found at Neolithic sites because our ancestors were the European aborigines, still at the hunter-gatherer stage, and thus rather scarce in farming communities.

That seems incredibly unlikely. All the advantages would be with cultures who were used to farming products. Lets put it this way, the mt DNA representative of the hunters (mainly U) did not prosper with the coming of farming. U shrunk in size dramatically. Its more likely by far that R1b hasnt been found simply because no yDNA from west European late Neolithic sites have been published as yet (other than one Corded Ware R1a family burial). It may well be that it is associated with beakers and their post-beaker descendants in the same areas.

I know, Alan. I wasn't giving my own opinion, just kind of continuing the line of "maybes" that began with "Maybe R1a was the original PIE y haplogroup".

I don't think R1b was in western Europe during the Paleolithic or even the Mesolithic Period.

I was giving my opinion about Cucuteni-Tripolye, though. I don't think any ancient R1b will be found there.

On the other hand, the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic groups were NOT Usatovo, but a different kind of Yamnaya that were from further east and did NOT have contact with the Cucuteni-Trypolye. These pre-Italic/pre-Celtic Yamnaya from east of the Bug River were a "true folk movement" that involved "major, sustained population movement". He also says they "passed through" Usatovo lands. They were already speaking PIE so they didn't need to have picked it up from the Usatovo at that time.

How to or to who did they pass the IE language on if their major haplogroup group was not P312 or a pre-P312 R1b type? Somehow, by the time they emanated out of Hungary they were P312 or pre-P312 R1b laden.

If we follow Anthony's model, it seems hard to understand how separate lineages of R1b in Old European cultures all learned IE from different migrations (pre-Germanic, pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and maybe pre-Balto/Slavic) of Yamnaya herders, unless of course they were among the Yamnaya herders in the first place.

Cucuteni-Tripolye lived within the Yamnaya horizon for 800 years (3600-2800). Compare it to German immigrants to the US in 18th and 19th centuries. They learned English after a while and eventually became apart of the American "horizon". It was probably an easier transition for the Cucuteni because they had been interacting with steppe populations since 5500.

On the other hand, the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic groups were NOT Usatovo, but a different kind of Yamnaya that were from further east and did NOT have contact with the Cucuteni-Trypolye. These pre-Italic/pre-Celtic Yamnaya from east of the Bug River were a "true folk movement" that involved "major, sustained population movement". He also says they "passed through" Usatovo lands. They were already speaking PIE so they didn't need to have picked it up from the Usatovo at that time.

How to or to who did they pass the IE language on if their major haplogroup group was not P312 or a pre-P312 R1b type? Somehow, by the time they emanated out of Hungary they were P312 or pre-P312 R1b laden.

If we follow Anthony's model, it seems hard to understand how separate lineages of R1b in Old European cultures all learned IE from different migrations (pre-Germanic, pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and maybe pre-Balto/Slavic) of Yamnaya herders, unless of course they were among the Yamnaya herders in the first place.

Cucuteni-Tripolye lived within the Yamnaya horizon for 800 years (3600-2800). Compare it to German immigrants to the US in 18th and 19th centuries. They learned English after a while and eventually became apart of the American "horizon". It was probably an easier transition for the Cucuteni because they had been interacting with steppe populations since 5500.

But then something similar happened to the next culture over - and the next and the next - all the way to the Atlantic?

These Yamnaya are people from the South Bug River valley and to the east. They were people that moved very quickly up the Danube valley. It doesn't sound like a type of movement that could spend much time integrating with existing cultures.

They also didn't leave any traces of settlement in Hungary, if you exclude the kurgans. It seems as if they were absorbed into other cultures in the region, bell beaker just being one of them. From what little I've read about the Yamnaya in Hungary, there was little or no integration with the contemporary Baden and Vucedol people.

I've found statistics for 6 ochre-grave or Yamnaya skeletons from there. Only 1 or 2 showed the common steppe physical type. The rest were much like the high-vaulted, gracile neolithics. So, the idea of Cucuteni-Tripolye or other SE Europe people getting swept up in the Danube migration seems probable.

I think in a few years the whole revival of the Kurgan model as a way to explain more than just the Indo-Europeanisation of eastern Europe and SW/central Asia will look misguided. I am surprised just how much credence it is getting but I would be amazed if this lasts. The only thing good to come out of the Kurgan v Renfrew (first farmers) model is the feeling that both are wrong. However, I do think Renfrew's modified version where he places pre-PIE in Asia Minor and adjacent and has PIE rise in SE Europe as an offshoot does resemble the spread of dairying from Anatolia into the Bulgaria/west Black Sea area in the 5th millenium BC. That area then became a contact zone transferring aspects of farming to the steppes hunters. Once converted to farming and perhaps Indo-Europeanised there was a modest reflux movement by the Kurgan peoples back into the eastern fringes of the farming world but that is about it. That is the way I see the evidence and much of the rest seems like waffle and pie in the sky models to me.

Cucuteni-Tripolye lived within the Yamnaya horizon for 800 years (3600-2800). Compare it to German immigrants to the US in 18th and 19th centuries. They learned English after a while and eventually became apart of the American "horizon". It was probably an easier transition for the Cucuteni because they had been interacting with steppe populations since 5500.

The reason we cannot use the Germans as a proxy is that they do not come to represent a large proportion of the American Y-DNA landscape, at least not in the same way R1b does for Western Europe.

The Germans came and learned English, but there is still plenty of British-American Y-DNA represented in the gene pool. This theory supposes that R1a would be present in significant frequencies among those Indo-Europeans who went west. This is not the case, however.

I suppose it is understandable for men who carry a particular haplogroup to want to believe that their direct ancestor had primacy in everything, but I'm getting a bit tired of R1a1a carriers fighting for the idea that 13910T lactase persistence arose in an R1a1a man, and R1b carriers fighting for the idea that PIE was first spoken by an R1b man. It doesn't matter . . .

It isn't in the same league with having enough air to breathe or food and drink and shelter, but it does matter. Otherwise, there would be far fewer sales of y-dna tests and far far fewer posts here at World Families and elsewhere.

Maybe R1a was the original PIE y haplogroup. I don't know. I tend to think there wasn't much R1b, if any, in Cucuteni-Tripolye and that what was there will turn out to have been I2a, G2a, and E1b1b. So, if IE was transmitted rather than carried west, then perhaps R1b men learned it from I2a, G2a, and E1b1b middlemen, and not so much from the R1a originators themselves. Maybe R1b hasn't yet been found at Neolithic sites because our ancestors were the European aborigines, still at the hunter-gatherer stage, and thus rather scarce in farming communities.

That seems incredibly unlikely. All the advantages would be with cultures who were used to farming products. Lets put it this way, the mt DNA representative of the hunters (mainly U) did not prosper with the coming of farming. U shrunk in size dramatically. Its more likely by far that R1b hasnt been found simply because no yDNA from west European late Neolithic sites have been published as yet (other than one Corded Ware R1a family burial). It may well be that it is associated with beakers and their post-beaker descendants in the same areas.

I know, Alan. I wasn't giving my own opinion, just kind of continuing the line of "maybes" that began with "Maybe R1a was the original PIE y haplogroup".

I don't think R1b was in western Europe during the Paleolithic or even the Mesolithic Period.

I was giving my opinion about Cucuteni-Tripolye, though. I don't think any ancient R1b will be found there.

I wouldnt be surprised if the original area of PIE speaking was in the Bulgaria/Romania area that lies between the big R1a an R1b blocks on either side. It was the first area of the spread of cattle dairying into Europe and there developed advanced and very populous cultures in that area. I find it very hard to believe that some steppes hunters (later nomads) would have imposed their language on Europe. I think the whole Kurgan theory (in so much as it is seen as the actual source of IE and the origin of IE languages across most of Europe) will one day be seen as a textbook example of counter-intuitive arguing to support an inherited bit of baggage from the earlier days of the study of antiquity. I have no doubt that at some stage R1a populations learned IE and were responsible for the spread of the language in some directions to the east and south but I dont think they were the original source. I suspect that IE arose closer to the near east and spread into Anatolia in a pre-PIE form before spreading to the west side of the Black Sea with dairying. From there it may have exercised an influence both east into the steppes and west into the rest of Europe.

On the other hand, the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic groups were NOT Usatovo, but a different kind of Yamnaya that were from further east and did NOT have contact with the Cucuteni-Trypolye. These pre-Italic/pre-Celtic Yamnaya from east of the Bug River were a "true folk movement" that involved "major, sustained population movement". He also says they "passed through" Usatovo lands. They were already speaking PIE so they didn't need to have picked it up from the Usatovo at that time.

How to or to who did they pass the IE language on if their major haplogroup group was not P312 or a pre-P312 R1b type? Somehow, by the time they emanated out of Hungary they were P312 or pre-P312 R1b laden.

If we follow Anthony's model, it seems hard to understand how separate lineages of R1b in Old European cultures all learned IE from different migrations (pre-Germanic, pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and maybe pre-Balto/Slavic) of Yamnaya herders, unless of course they were among the Yamnaya herders in the first place.

Cucuteni-Tripolye lived within the Yamnaya horizon for 800 years (3600-2800). Compare it to German immigrants to the US in 18th and 19th centuries. They learned English after a while and eventually became apart of the American "horizon". It was probably an easier transition for the Cucuteni because they had been interacting with steppe populations since 5500.

But then something similar happened to the next culture over - and the next and the next - all the way to the Atlantic?

Kind of strains credulity, doesn't it?

The Kurgan theory has always been a complete house of cards and essentially fantasy when it comes to most of Europe. Forget Antony, read the organ grinder instead (Mallory). His book basically admits the Kurgan theory does not work for almost all of Europe. Anthony tries to weave around this but its the usual waffle and house of cards when it comes to applying the Kurgan theory to most of Europe. It just my opinion (people have been trying to crack this nut for generations) but I think treating Anthony's book like some sort of bible on the subject is a waste of time. What he says on the Indo-Europeanisation of Europe outside its eastern fringe is like a short aside that could have been written on the back of a few envelopes.

What kind of baffles me is the treatment of Anatolian in Anthony's book. He calls it "The Oldest and Strangest Daughter (Or Cousin?)" [of IE] and mentions that the oldest documentary evidence of any Indo-European language, in this case in the form of inscriptions, is for Hittite, dated to about 1900 BC. Then he mentions the archaic traits of Anatolian that make it a special case and separate from PIE.

Quote from: Anthony, pp. 47-48

The Anatolian branch either lost or never possessed other features that were present in all other Indo-European languages . . .

Alexander Lehrman identified ten such traits that probably were innovations in Proto-Indo-European after Pre-Anatolian split away.

For some Indo-Europeanists these traits suggest that the Anatolian branch did not develop from Proto-Indo-European at all but rather evolved from an older Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor. This ancestral language was called Indo-Hittite by William Sturtevant. According to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, Anatolian is an Indo-European language only in the broadest sense, as it did not develop from Proto-Indo-European. But it did preserve, uniquely, features of an earlier language community from which they both evolved. I cannot solve the debate over the categorization of Anatolian here, although it is obviously true that Proto-Indo-European must have evolved from an earlier language community, and we can use Indo-Hittite to refer to that hypothetical earlier stage.

So, there you have it. The most archaic of the Indo-European languages is found in Anatolia, where the oldest written evidence of Indo-European is also found. Be that as it may, Anthony and the other Kurganists derive Anatolian from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, usually by way of the Balkan peninsula. Yes, Anatolian, the oldest known branch of Indo-European, although found in Anatolia (hence the name), must have come from the Pontic-Caspian steppe! It just split off very early.

What kind of baffles me is the treatment of Anatolian in Anthony's book. He calls it "The Oldest and Strangest Daughter (Or Cousin?)" [of IE] and mentions that the oldest documentary evidence of any Indo-European language, in this case in the form of inscriptions, is for Hittite, dated to about 1900 BC. Then he mentions the archaic traits of Anatolian that make it a special case and separate from PIE.

Quote from: Anthony, pp. 47-48

The Anatolian branch either lost or never possessed other features that were present in all other Indo-European languages . . .

Alexander Lehrman identified ten such traits that probably were innovations in Proto-Indo-European after Pre-Anatolian split away.

For some Indo-Europeanists these traits suggest that the Anatolian branch did not develop from Proto-Indo-European at all but rather evolved from an older Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor. This ancestral language was called Indo-Hittite by William Sturtevant. According to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, Anatolian is an Indo-European language only in the broadest sense, as it did not develop from Proto-Indo-European. But it did preserve, uniquely, features of an earlier language community from which they both evolved. I cannot solve the debate over the categorization of Anatolian here, although it is obviously true that Proto-Indo-European must have evolved from an earlier language community, and we can use Indo-Hittite to refer to that hypothetical earlier stage.

So, there you have it. The most archaic of the Indo-European languages is found in Anatolia, where the oldest written evidence of Indo-European is also found. Be that as it may, Anthony and the other Kurganists derive Anatolian from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, usually by way of the Balkan peninsula. Yes, Anatolian, the oldest known branch of Indo-European, although found in Anatolia (hence the name), must have come from the Pontic-Caspian steppe! It just split off very early.

Am I the only one who finds that more than a little odd?

Just one of a lot of special pleading in the Kurgan school. As I said before, at least Mallory admits that the Kurgan model is of little use beyond Europe's eastern fringes. Personally I think Anthony gave the game away by his waffly attempts to use the Kurgan model to explain IE in much of Europe. All he presented was waffle and something of a dressed up throwback to the Corded Ware - Kurgan links of Gordon Childe's day.

At the risk of really stirring up the hornets' nest, since consensus was mentioned as favoring the Kurgan Theory on either this or another thread, I thought I would once again post this quote from Barry Cunliffe.

Quote from: Cunliffe, Barry

While it is only fair to say that large areas remain unresolved, there is a growing consensus, at least among a significant group of archaeologists, that the most appropriate context for the introduction of the Indo-European languages into Europe is the spread of the Neolithic way of life. In other words, the language originated among the early food producers of south-west Asia and thereafter spread through Europe, one branch following the route through the Balkans to the Great Hungarian Plain and then westwards through the deciduous forest zone of Middle Europe, the other spreading westwards through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic shores of Iberia. In both these zones Indo-European was swept quickly forwards in the fifth millennium as the language of the colonizing farmers. Europe Between the Oceans, p. 138

Anthony's own comments about Anatolian tend to support Cunliffe's contention.

But then something similar happened to the next culture over - and the next and the next - all the way to the Atlantic?

Kind of strains credulity, doesn't it?

Not really. I was thinking in terms of the Bell Beaker horizon rather than a series of continuous cultures each adopting a package. Basically, these previous cultures which were more localized than a horizon were outcompeted, overrun, etc. over a course of several hundred years. We see this happening to the Treilles people in SE France in the 4th millenium. Why did all of these areas suddenly adopt uniform horizon from Norway to the Mediterranean by the 3rd millenium?

But then something similar happened to the next culture over - and the next and the next - all the way to the Atlantic?

Kind of strains credulity, doesn't it?

Not really. I was thinking in terms of the Bell Beaker horizon rather than a series of continuous cultures each adopting a package. Basically, these previous cultures which were more localized than a horizon were outcompeted, overrun, etc. over a course of several hundred years. We see this happening to the Treilles people in SE France in the 4th millenium. Why did all of these areas suddenly adopt uniform horizon from Norway to the Mediterranean by the 3rd millenium?

Well, it certainly strains my willingness to believe it.

So, you think Bell Beaker represents an amalgam of different peoples who adopted an IE language and a sort of evolved variant of the kurgan model, probably in the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain, and then spread that west, ultimately all the way to the Atlantic and northward to Scandinavia and the Orkneys (even though the oldest radiocarbon 14 dated beaker stuff comes from the Tagus Valley in Portugal)?

Your use of "uniform horizon" makes things sound more monolithic than they really were.

But then something similar happened to the next culture over - and the next and the next - all the way to the Atlantic?

Kind of strains credulity, doesn't it?

Not really. I was thinking in terms of the Bell Beaker horizon rather than a series of continuous cultures each adopting a package. Basically, these previous cultures which were more localized than a horizon were outcompeted, overrun, etc. over a course of several hundred years. We see this happening to the Treilles people in SE France in the 4th millenium. Why did all of these areas suddenly adopt uniform horizon from Norway to the Mediterranean by the 3rd millenium?

Well, it certainly strains my willingness to believe it.

So, you think Bell Beaker represents an amalgam of different peoples who adopted an IE language and a sort of evolved variant of the kurgan model, probably in the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain, and then spread that west, ultimately all the way to the Atlantic and northward to Scandinavia and the Orkneys (even though the oldest radiocarbon 14 dated beaker stuff comes from the Tagus Valley in Portugal)?

Your use of "uniform horizon" makes things sound more monolithic than they really were.

To your first question, generally yes. IE would have to be acquired long before then, probably somewhere in E or SE Europe. The oldest date for Beaker in Portugal is not critical to a large expansion of R1b coming from the east around the same time. The late neolithic people could have recieved it through trade. The all over corded style was just one of several in use by Beakers. So, of course it's not monolithic. The influence of most ceramics used by Beakers also comes from the east.

I wouldnt be surprised if the original area of PIE speaking was in the Bulgaria/Romania area that lies between the big R1a an R1b blocks on either side. It was the first area of the spread of cattle dairying into Europe and there developed advanced and very populous cultures in that area. I find it very hard to believe that some steppes hunters (later nomads) would have imposed their language on Europe. I think the whole Kurgan theory (in so much as it is seen as the actual source of IE and the origin of IE languages across most of Europe) will one day be seen as a textbook example of counter-intuitive arguing to support an inherited bit of baggage from the earlier days of the study of antiquity. I have no doubt that at some stage R1a populations learned IE and were responsible for the spread of the language in some directions to the east and south but I dont think they were the original source. I suspect that IE arose closer to the near east and spread into Anatolia in a pre-PIE form before spreading to the west side of the Black Sea with dairying. From there it may have exercised an influence both east into the steppes and west into the rest of Europe.

This is reasonable compared to the Renfrew version given the time frame when dairy farming came about. There may have not been a single, relatively small homeland which many have tried to narrow down.

How would there be a Proto-Uralic connection in this model? It seems that the area where PIE was spoken would have to extend from Bulgaria to the Urals. In Anthony's book, the Cucuteni only reach the Dnieper river, but had no settlements beyond. I suppose it is possible that the steppe people to the east would have acquired it and not long after proto-Tocharian branches off.

On the other hand, the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic groups were NOT Usatovo, but a different kind of Yamnaya that were from further east and did NOT have contact with the Cucuteni-Trypolye. These pre-Italic/pre-Celtic Yamnaya from east of the Bug River were a "true folk movement" that involved "major, sustained population movement". He also says they "passed through" Usatovo lands. They were already speaking PIE so they didn't need to have picked it up from the Usatovo at that time.

How to or to who did they pass the IE language on if their major haplogroup group was not P312 or a pre-P312 R1b type? Somehow, by the time they emanated out of Hungary they were P312 or pre-P312 R1b laden.

If we follow Anthony's model, it seems hard to understand how separate lineages of R1b in Old European cultures all learned IE from different migrations (pre-Germanic, pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and maybe pre-Balto/Slavic) of Yamnaya herders, unless of course they were among the Yamnaya herders in the first place.

Cucuteni-Tripolye lived within the Yamnaya horizon for 800 years (3600-2800). Compare it to German immigrants to the US in 18th and 19th centuries. They learned English after a while and eventually became apart of the American "horizon". It was probably an easier transition for the Cucuteni because they had been interacting with steppe populations since 5500.

I don't think the German-American example is comparable. Language changes don't generally come because of the desire of the target for change. Usually the target would prefer to have everyone else change.

In the German-American example, there is a huge benefit (and perhaps a huge problem if you don't) to learning the new language to enhance employment, business and other opportunities. The governing institutions also encouraged it, but probably more important was the huge weight of the majority of pre-existing Americans already speaking English.

Usually, from what I see, necessity drives language change. Have you ever taken a Berlitz language class? Most people don't learn conversational skills in a foreign language without being forced into it because speaking in your native language doesn't work in the "foreign" environment.

The Cucuteni-Tripolye folks were comparatively populous vis-a-vie the Usatovo folks they had contact with. Were they forced by the militant Yamnaya herders? Perhaps so..... but then if that was the case you'd expect the dominant paternal lineages to be Yamnaya and according to Jean M and Anatole that would mean they are probably R1a1.

This is why I ask "where are the R1a1 Celts?" This is why I can't align the significant Yamnaya folk migration from east of the Bug River to Hungary and what Anthony thinks is the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic speakers --- to the R-P312 dominance in what ended up being the Celtic territories of Western Europe.

Unless, of course, those Yamnaya had some R1b in them too from way back in the steppes.

Another problem for the argument that R1b was of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture and learned IE from the Usatovo (Yamnaya) is this --- Other Old Europe cultures must also have independently learned IE from the Yamnaya, not just the Cucuteni-Tripolye. The Yamnaya who went up the Danube to Hungary that may have been pre-Italic and pre-Celtic weren't thought to have had the same amount of "integration" with Old Europe.

I guess the counter-argument is that R1b was pervasive in Old Europe (farming) beyond the Cucuteni-Trypolye so they would always be the receivers from the R1a Yamnaya herders.

Still, I don't get why more R1a1 didn't leak through to the heavily Celtic dominated lands..

At the risk of really stirring up the hornets' nest, since consensus was mentioned as favoring the Kurgan Theory on either this or another thread, I thought I would once again post this quote from Barry Cunliffe.

Quote from: Cunliffe, Barry

While it is only fair to say that large areas remain unresolved, there is a growing consensus, at least among a significant group of archaeologists, that the most appropriate context for the introduction of the Indo-European languages into Europe is the spread of the Neolithic way of life. In other words, the language originated among the early food producers of south-west Asia and thereafter spread through Europe, one branch following the route through the Balkans to the Great Hungarian Plain and then westwards through the deciduous forest zone of Middle Europe, the other spreading westwards through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic shores of Iberia. In both these zones Indo-European was swept quickly forwards in the fifth millennium as the language of the colonizing farmers. Europe Between the Oceans, p. 138

Anthony's own comments about Anatolian tend to support Cunliffe's contention.

I've never seen where Cunliffe gets into the details of PIE and what it really is and how therefore we can try to locate its homeland.

I guess I'm saying Cunliffe is an archaeologist, not a linguist and unless he can give more detail than that in his rationale I'm not convinced. I've read two of his books. I think Cunliffe is swayed by the big picture and broad strokes of the gigantic Neolithic advances. There is nothing wrong with that, however, the Neolithic advances really don't line up with IE expansion nor R1b expansion nor R1a expansion.

Anthony does go into detail on PIE and explains why he thinks the PIE homeland has to be in the steppes. He may be wrong, but I think the counter-arguments all have to relate to figuring out Anatolian. Anthony would consider it "pre-PIE" in effect. It is missing some key words. However, I don't know the linguistics issues to argue whether the missing words must be "basic" words in PIE or could have been loan words into PIE. Maybe it doesn't matter.

The case for PIE in steppes relies on the concept that all descending IE languages have the basic PIE root words and therefore who cares where pre-PIE was? It is only full PIE that counts since Germanic, Italic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Greek, Sanskrit, etc. all sprung from full PIE.

I apologize that I'm taking a bit of hard edge of some of these topics, but there are some things I've never understood and I've decided it is time to argue and either be left standing or be knocked down. Either way is okay, but I'm seeking a greater resolution than the tentative ones we have now.

The Anatolian/Balkanic origin of IE have to battle two important obstacles.1) Chronology, Neolithic is considered too early for PIE to be in existence.2) The foreign origin of Hittites. That is something so well established that Renfrew can only indicate some doubts on the subject without really putting forward an alternative. Hittites arrived to Anatolia at some point c.2000 BC and replaced the original Hattic (non IE) speakers.

In what you posted earlier, about Yamnaya mothers teaching R1b sons IE, you seemed to be saying that PIE originated among peoples who were predominantly R1a. .. What I thought we were discussing was who the original IE folk were. If R1b peoples learned it, however early on, from R1a peoples, then R1a is the PIE y haplogroup.

I'm very sorry that you feel that way. It just feeds what you rightly call haplogroup cheerleading. I think it a big mistake to assume that any ethnic group was ever composed of a single haplogroup, except possibly very early in its development, if it began as a single family group.

Yes it is pretty plain that PIE developed from a hunter-gatherer language, which came in contact with farming/stock-keeping. Yes it is pretty plain that it developed around the south Urals. Yes it is pretty plain that those who developed an early form of it were strong in R1a1a, though it is is unlikely that R1a1a was the only Y-DNA haplogroup among them. We can tell this from the predominance of R1a1a in those IE speakers who went east, including the ancestors of the Tocharian-speakers. Those ancestors left c. 3,500 BC and created the copper-working Afanasievo Culture, which is an offshoot of the culture of the Volga-Ural region.

However the input of the dairy farmers and copper workers of Cucuteni into the composite culture (and therefore PIE as a language of that culture) cannot be denied. The language spread because of the strength and mobility of that culture. By the time that IE-speaking people moved up the Danube c. 3000 BC, evidently R1b was very strong among them. Lactase persistence, which most probably cropped up first among dairy farmers around the Sea of Marmara or Danube delta, travelled east with people strong in R1a1a (and travelled also with Uralic-speakers). That means that R1b and R1a1a people had been inter-mixing. There cannot have been a genetic/cultural/language barrier between them. The barriers had dissolved.

I've never seen where Cunliffe gets into the details of PIE and what it really is and how therefore we can try to locate its homeland. ..I guess I'm saying Cunliffe is an archaeologist, not a linguist... I think Cunliffe is swayed by the big picture and broad strokes of the gigantic Neolithic advances.

That's exactly right. I can't criticise because I leaned the same way before I got into the linguistics. However Prof. Cunliffe seemed to be hedging his bets in the last book (Europe Between the Oceans), and subsequently has been working with a linguist, Prof. John Koch. They invited both Mallory and Renfrew to lecture at the launch of their volume Celtic from the West. You can find summaries of those lectures in my notes on that meeting.

At the risk of really stirring up the hornets' nest, since consensus was mentioned as favoring the Kurgan Theory on either this or another thread, I thought I would once again post this quote from Barry Cunliffe.

Quote from: Cunliffe, Barry

While it is only fair to say that large areas remain unresolved, there is a growing consensus, at least among a significant group of archaeologists, that the most appropriate context for the introduction of the Indo-European languages into Europe is the spread of the Neolithic way of life. In other words, the language originated among the early food producers of south-west Asia and thereafter spread through Europe, one branch following the route through the Balkans to the Great Hungarian Plain and then westwards through the deciduous forest zone of Middle Europe, the other spreading westwards through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic shores of Iberia. In both these zones Indo-European was swept quickly forwards in the fifth millennium as the language of the colonizing farmers. Europe Between the Oceans, p. 138

Anthony's own comments about Anatolian tend to support Cunliffe's contention.

I've never seen where Cunliffe gets into the details of PIE and what it really is and how therefore we can try to locate its homeland.

I guess I'm saying Cunliffe is an archaeologist, not a linguist and unless he can give more detail than that in his rationale I'm not convinced. I've read two of his books. I think Cunliffe is swayed by the big picture and broad strokes of the gigantic Neolithic advances. There is nothing wrong with that, however, the Neolithic advances really don't line up with IE expansion nor R1b expansion nor R1a expansion.

Anthony does go into detail on PIE and explains why he thinks the PIE homeland has to be in the steppes. He may be wrong, but I think the counter-arguments all have to relate to figuring out Anatolian. Anthony would consider it "pre-PIE" in effect. It is missing some key words. However, I don't know the linguistics issues to argue whether the missing words must be "basic" words in PIE or could have been loan words into PIE. Maybe it doesn't matter.

The case for PIE in steppes relies on the concept that all descending IE languages have the basic PIE root words and therefore who cares where pre-PIE was? It is only full PIE that counts since Germanic, Italic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Greek, Sanskrit, etc. all sprung from full PIE.

I apologize that I'm taking a bit of hard edge of some of these topics, but there are some things I've never understood and I've decided it is time to argue and either be left standing or be knocked down. Either way is okay, but I'm seeking a greater resolution than the tentative ones we have now.

Here's the thing about Anatolian and Indo-European that I think is important, and you know I am no more of an expert than you are.

We don't know what kind of language was spoken on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the 5th or 4th millennium BC. I'm not arguing that it wasn't some kind of IE, but we don't really know, and we have no hard evidence for what it was.

For Anatolia, however, we know from inscriptions that at least one IE language, Hittite, was being spoken there by 1900 BC. That is hard evidence. For the rest, we know that the Anatolian branch of IE is the most archaic of the IE languages, so much so that some linguists have posited the existence of Indo-Hittite as a precursor of PIE itself.

It seems reasonable to me that the Urheimat of Indo-European might very well be the place where 1) the oldest hard evidence of IE is found and 2) the home of the very precursor or parent language of Indo-European itself is found.

In addition, if Euphratic actually existed and was a very early IE language, does it make more sense to derive it from relatively nearby Anatolia or from the distant Pontic-Caspian steppe?

Where you find grandpa could be where the old folks live. Why make grandpa the one who moved because you find some of his descendants someplace else?

The point Cunliffe was making about the Neolithic as the vehicle for IE is that it was a momentous epoch that affected all of Europe, from one end to the other - precisely the sort of thing that might leave another big change, like the switch to Indo-European, in its wake. The kurgan horizon or package or whatever is small potatoes by comparison and did not sweep across Europe in any recognizable form.

As for the Neolithic being too old, well, it didn't come all at once, and that is the argument of those who think they have glottochronology and the timing of language change down pat. I don't have that much confidence in the precision of linguistic arguments, not for things like the passage of time, which are not themselves questions of language.

As for "full PIE", why couldn't an early form of IE have come north out of Anatolia and in SE Europe subsequently picked up the changes evident in PIE and spread them from there?

I wouldnt be surprised if the original area of PIE speaking was in the Bulgaria/Romania area that lies between the big R1a an R1b blocks on either side. It was the first area of the spread of cattle dairying into Europe and there developed advanced and very populous cultures in that area. I find it very hard to believe that some steppes hunters (later nomads) would have imposed their language on Europe. I think the whole Kurgan theory (in so much as it is seen as the actual source of IE and the origin of IE languages across most of Europe) will one day be seen as a textbook example of counter-intuitive arguing to support an inherited bit of baggage from the earlier days of the study of antiquity. I have no doubt that at some stage R1a populations learned IE and were responsible for the spread of the language in some directions to the east and south but I dont think they were the original source. I suspect that IE arose closer to the near east and spread into Anatolia in a pre-PIE form before spreading to the west side of the Black Sea with dairying. From there it may have exercised an influence both east into the steppes and west into the rest of Europe.

This is reasonable compared to the Renfrew version given the time frame when dairy farming came about. There may have not been a single, relatively small homeland which many have tried to narrow down.

How would there be a Proto-Uralic connection in this model? It seems that the area where PIE was spoken would have to extend from Bulgaria to the Urals. In Anthony's book, the Cucuteni only reach the Dnieper river, but had no settlements beyond. I suppose it is possible that the steppe people to the east would have acquired it and not long after proto-Tocharian branches off.

The Proto-Uralic connection is somewhat controversial and not a slam-dunk. Anthony himself mentions the possibility that the influence of Proto-Uralic is relatively late and primarily affected Indo-Iranian. Of course, he produces arguments to show that the Proto-Uralic influence was earlier, but mostly, as I recall, by showing that IE influenced Uralic and not the other way around.

Early IE also had Caucasian influences, but Anthony characterizes those as "controversial" (the Proto-Uralic influences are just as controversial).

The Cucuteni-Tripolye folks were comparatively populous vis-a-vie the Usatovo folks they had contact with. Were they forced by the militant Yamnaya herders? Perhaps so..... but then if that was the case you'd expect the dominant paternal lineages to be Yamnaya and according to Jean M and Anatole that would mean they are probably R1a1.

This is why I ask "where are the R1a1 Celts?" This is why I can't align the significant Yamnaya folk migration from east of the Bug River to Hungary and what Anthony thinks is the pre-Italic/pre-Celtic speakers --- to the R-P312 dominance in what ended up being the Celtic territories of Western Europe.

Unless, of course, those Yamnaya had some R1b in them too from way back in the steppes.

Another problem for the argument that R1b was of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture and learned IE from the Usatovo (Yamnaya) is this --- Other Old Europe cultures must also have independently learned IE from the Yamnaya, not just the Cucuteni-Tripolye. The Yamnaya who went up the Danube to Hungary that may have been pre-Italic and pre-Celtic weren't thought to have had the same amount of "integration" with Old Europe.

I guess the counter-argument is that R1b was pervasive in Old Europe (farming) beyond the Cucuteni-Trypolye so they would always be the receivers from the R1a Yamnaya herders.

Still, I don't get why more R1a1 didn't leak through to the heavily Celtic dominated lands..

Fair points. I think the reason R1a didn't make it into Celtic Europe in later times is because they weren't a large part of the Yamnaya migration into Hungary. The Bug river is not too far away from the Cucuteni-Tripolye either. I think the people involved in that were many Hg's possibly, but also R1b who were either IE-ized Tripolye people or others living along the Danube.

The other old Europe cultures were not as independent at the time of the Yamnaya migrations. Already established was the Cernavoda-Ezero complex or horizon in SE Europe which possibly was dominated by a steppe elite at first. Then, there was the Cotofeni culture in Romania, another kind of hybrid steppe/old Europe group like Usatavo. This is why I don't think each old Europe community had to adapt in an independent way. They were likely "encouraged" to by the new management as a means of survival. By the time Cucuteni-Tripolye ends in 2800, SE Europe is already speaking some form of IE. In the above, I'm mainly speaking about the old tell regions of the lower Danube.

It is also possible that Anthony is wrong about the Yamnaya people bringing proto-Italo-Celtic west. It could just as easily spun off from somewhere in the Cernavoda-Ezero horizon before them. The reason for this is the Baden and Vucedol people were not integrating with the steppe people in the Hungarian plain.

We don't know what kind of language was spoken on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the 5th or 4th millennium BC. ... For Anatolia, however, we know from inscriptions that at least one IE language, Hittite, was being spoken there by 1900 BC.

The places where we find the earliest records of languages are simply the places with literate societies. PIE was not the language of a literate society of the Near East or Anatolia. We know this first because it wasn't written down, and second because it doesn't have vocabulary for complex urban life. I tried to explain this on the other thread, but possibly I was too oblique.

In my efforts to make things succinct and easily understood, I may have conveyed the impression of a very simple story of R1b living only and always in the Balkans and R1a living only and always around the Volga-Urals. This is very obviously not the case. The reality must have been much more complex. Some R1b ended up in places on the steppe. Some R1a filtered up the rivers into the remnants of Cucuteni villages. Ra1a and R1b could travel together. They very clearly interacted.